


The Body Electric

by ThirtySixSaveFiles



Category: Borderlands, Tales from the Borderlands - Fandom
Genre: Other, Pre-Relationship, dumb ideas, mention of amputation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-15 00:31:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11219475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThirtySixSaveFiles/pseuds/ThirtySixSaveFiles
Summary: This is a stupid idea, but Rhys has had a whole string of stupid ideas lately. What's one more?Kind of a prequel toAccidentally On Purpose.





	The Body Electric

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place between the Helios crash and Rhys' appearance in Ep 1. Written for the Borderlands Summer Bingo 2017 prompt "kite flying."

The journey from what’s left of Helios to Old Haven is long, miserable, and surprisingly boring. For a planet that seems to be overrun with people trying to kill him, Rhys encounters precisely none of them on his way back to the Atlas facility. His days are interrupted by nothing but a few opportunistic rakks, and the nights are long, cold, and lonely, huddled around a campfire with the supplies he had scavenged from his escape pod. Occasionally he’ll see a bandit technical careening off in the distance, but he must look too pathetic to even bother investigating because the whooping of its occupants never grows near.

He’s seen no one for days, but he can’t shake the feeling of being followed.

He doesn’t know if that’s _real_ , though - he hadn’t realized how accustomed he had become to a staticky presence over his shoulder until it was gone. He’ll find himself turning to ask Jack a question, expecting a lazy grin and a half-helpful answer, only to come up short when he’s confronted with empty scrubland. He had ripped Jack out of himself with his bare hands - he _chose_ this, it was the only way - but it seems that removing Jack’s memory won’t be as simple.

The feeling fades on the third day, which must be a good sign. It means that things are finally getting right in his head again, if he feels alone in it. The empty socket on his right shoulder and the gaping hole underneath the patch on his eye still have him off-balance, but the Atlas charter under his vest steadies him, gives him purpose.

At last, Old Haven rises in front of him, silent except for the grumble of clouds in the distance and the skitter of debris in the fresh breeze. It’s - _eerily_ silent, actually. Rhys sidles along building and peers around corners, but he doesn’t encounter a single soul, psycho or otherwise. His nerves are jangling with unreleased tension when he finally makes it to the center of the facility, but there’s no one to be found. Rhys stands before the closed doors to the underground bunker and tries to think past the clamoring in his brain that says _something’s wrong, no place like this gets left alone on Pandora_.

But there’s _no one_ here, not even a dead body. And that’s what’s setting his nerves off most of all, Rhys realizes - the last time he had been here, the place had been full of psychos and explosions. Even if the survivors had moved on, there should at least be...bits, or something, left lying around. Psychos don’t seem like the type to bury their dead.

The wind whistles down the empty paths, tasting faintly of ozone, and Rhys looks up. The sky is growing darker, the clouds advancing. The storm’s on the move; he’d better get inside before it catches up to him.

The door’s control panel, however, is ominously dark when he finally locates it. He jabs a few buttons - the first time everything had just opened automatically, why does this have to be so _difficult_ \- but the doors remain stubbornly closed.

The power must have turned off again while he was gone. Fine. He remembers where the breakers are, he’ll just - turn them on again.

Nothing happens when he flips the first switch off and back on. That’s okay, there are still two more to go. The first droplets of rain hit him when he resets the second breaker, and by the time he clambers back up to the third a few drops have turned into a steady downpour. He turns the breaker off, holds his breath, and flips it back on.

Nothing.

Rhys slumps against the building and slides down it, sitting on the little rooftop area under the third breaker. He closes his eyes and tips his head back, resting his arm on his knee. What if he just...didn't move again. It feels like he’s been moving for so long. What if he just stayed here until he washed away in the rain.

A crack of thunder splits the sky and Rhys starts, eyes flying open. Seconds later a bolt of lightning arcs down from the storm, hitting an array of rods on the opposite building. The lightning sparks between them before grounding harmlessly; it was clearly designed for this purpose.

Rhys stares. This is - this is possibly the _stupidest_ idea he’s ever had, and he’s had a real streak of stupid ideas lately.

It might work, though.

Wiring the lightning array to the breakers is the easy part. The whole complex is dead, so he strips some of the useless cabling down and peels the ends away, wrapping the bare wire around the contact points on the breakers. It ends up being a criscrossed mess of wires and casing stretching across the street and back again, and by the time he’s finished Rhys is soaked to the bone but this will work. Almost definitely.

If only the storm would _cooperate_. Rhys glares at the sky as lightning arcs through the clouds but refuses to ground itself again. If only he could reach up there and _grab_ it -

The wind picks up and Rhys’ vest flaps against his back. He looks down at it, then shrugs it off and holds it up to the wind, testing.

This is _definitely_ the stupidest idea he’s ever had, but he’s come this far. He might as well try it.

The vest is synthetic enough to not be waterlogged even in the downpour. It’s a bit of a struggle to get a cobbled-together frame secured inside of it, but Rhys manages. He tears down an entire block’s worth of cable and ties one end to his makeshift kite, securing the other end to the third breaker. The first attempt at launch fails to catch the wind, thumping back down to the wet ground. The second time the kite lifts off a few feet before faltering, and Rhys almost screams through his teeth.

It’s okay. He can do this. Rhys turns his back so the wind is directly behind him, and tries again.

This time the kite is practically ripped out of his hands as the wind catches it, and the vest billows as it’s lifted up and away, spiraling up into the sky, and Rhys laughs out loud, giddy with weariness and relief.

Then he _does_ scream as a synthesized voice speaks up behind him:

_“I am curious / As to how this will play out. / I hope you don’t mind.”_

Rhys spins on his heel and almost loses his footing, teetering wildly for a moment on the edge of the rooftop. Zer0 reaches out one long arm and grasps Rhys’ shoulder, pulling him back from the drop. Their grip is warm against the chill of the rain; it feels like the first warm thing Rhys has felt in ages.

“I - mind? Of course not, I - hahaha, _mind_ -” Maybe Zer0 should have let him drop over the edge; Rhys might be nearly out of his mind with exhaustion but he’s still pretty sure that death would be less embarrassing than this babbling.

There’s another crack of thunder overhead and Rhys looks up hopefully, but the lightning only flashes deep inside the clouds. He can see his little makeshift kite bobbing around up in the distance, and this _will_ work, it _has_ to work. If it doesn’t - he looks back at Zer0 and blinks rainwater away.

“What are - what are you even _doing_ here? Not that you can’t be here, I mean, you can go anywhere you want, right? But why -” Rhys snaps his mouth shut as something horrible occurs to him. “Oh god, this is - this is going to be the site of some sort of vault hunter deathmatch, isn’t it? That’s why no one’s here, that’s why _you’re_ here -”

Zer0 looks up at the sky seconds before a massive peal of thunder hits, so close it shakes the building they’re standing on. A flash of light splits the sky, arcing down and hitting Rhys’ kite dead-center. Rhys can taste the ozone on his tongue as electricity races down the cable. There’s a shower of sparks from the breaker box that has Rhys turning away and shielding his face, and for a second he thinks that’s it, game over, he’s blown the whole circuit -

Then lights start flickering on around him, and the building under his feet shakes again as the whole complex groans to life.

“Oh my god," Rhys breathes, wiping his wet hair back from his forehead. “It worked. I can’t believe it _worked_.”

Zer0 looks around, and they - they haven’t let go of Rhys’ shoulder, he realizes. Is there - have they forgotten? Should Rhys ease away? He doesn’t want to ease away.

“ _That’s interesting_ ,” Zer0 says, their blank helmet giving Rhys no clue if this is _good_ interesting or _bad_ interesting. _“I’ve never seen a building / jump-started before.”_

Probably _good_ interesting. “Thanks, I - I think.” Rhys clears his throat, because as much as he... _admires_ Zer0 he really does need to know what their presence means, and how much time Rhys has to get the defenses back up and running if it comes to that. “But - and please don’t take this the wrong way - what _are_ you doing here?”

For a long moment he thinks Zer0 isn’t going to answer; then they squeeze Rhys’ shoulder and step back. Rhys’ shoulder feels cold where Zer0’s hand had been.

“ _You attract trouble / like it’s going out of style_.” Rhys opens his mouth to argue that it’s not _his fault_ everyone wants to kill him, but closes it when Zer0 adds, “ _So I cleared the way_.”

Rhys blinks.

“You...cleared the way?” That can’t mean what it sounds like, but Zer0 simply nods and flashes him a “:)”.

Huh.

 _“I look forward to / seeing what you accomplish_.” The rain is finally tapering off, turning into a gentle mist that settles in small droplets on Zer0’s helmet. “ _I’ll see you around_.” Rhys moves to step forward but the vault hunter seems to glitch in the air, their outline fading and reappearing on a rooftop across the street. Zer0 waves jauntily, then turns and disappears, fading into the night.

Well, that was. Something.

That was probably _more_ than something, but Rhys is suddenly too exhausted to figure out what it is. He’s soaking wet, he’s bone-tired, but Old Haven is humming around him and it’s his now, to do what he wants with. To rebuild.

To rebuild _himself_.

But that’s going to have to wait for tomorrow; Rhys gingerly lets himself down from the rooftoop and scoops up his bag, heading back for the bunker. The doors open easily this time, and as Rhys descends into the tunnel he keeps thinking about _I’ll see you around_. The first thing he’ll work on is the external defenses, Rhys decides. Then replacing his arm. Then his eye, because that’s going to take some delicate work the he’ll need two hands for. Maybe more.

Snipers' hands are steady, or so Rhys has been told. Maybe an extra pair will come back to visit.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me at [ThirtySixSaveFiles](http://thirtysixsavefiles.tumblr.com) on Tumblr!


End file.
